Mar 2, 2011 Posted by Jennifer on Mar 2, 2011 in bread, breakfast | 15 comments

Ham & Cheese scones – Biggest Loser re-cap + Sargento Cheese Coupons

Many times I read recipes online, in magazines, in cookbooks and I say I am going to make them, yet I never do. I can’t tell you how many binders I have filled with clippings and copies of recipes. I’m trying to get out of that habit and if I see something that looks good and I have most of the ingredients – just make it!

I actually owe my version of this recipe to my twin sister Biz! She made what she called “scuffins” a cross between a muffin and a scone. You can see her version here.

I wanted just a savory component, and I had deli ham and Sargento sliced Cheddar cheese, so that’s what I went with. One thing my sister does when making things like this is to freeze the butter, so you can grate it and it gets evenly in the batter. It looks kind of cool too!

Here is my version of the recipe:

2 cups flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
5 tablespoons butter (frozen and grated using a cheese grater)
3/4 cup skim milk
1 egg white
1 slice Sargento Sharp Cheddar Cheese (only 80 calories!), cut into small pieces
2 ounces deli ham, chopped
*sprinkle of cheese on top of each one optional

In a mixer add all the ingredients and mix until combined, about a minute. This makes 12 scones. My sister measured out the dough at 2.1 ounces so that’s what I did. Bake in a preheated oven at 425 degrees for 17-19 minutes. Delish! Each scone is approximately 165 calories.

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Biggest Loser Spoiler Alert

What a tear jerker tonights episode was! I literally was crying watching first of all, the contestants coming home for the first time and their families seeing them. It’s always emotional when family members see how much weight they lost.

And ARTHUR!!! The challenge was to have the contestants run a 5k on a treadmill and whoever came in last would NOT get to choose what trainers they got. Arthur came in last and really wanted to be on Bob & Jillian’s black team, but when he came out in a red jersey, he was visibly upset and kept apologizing to Bob & Jillian that he tried hard, but came up short.

At the weigh in, Arthur had to lose 19 pounds in order to get immunity (that’s for 2 weeks of not weighing in). He lost 16. I think the red team should have sent the lightest person and let Arthur stay, but they kept their alliance and voted him off.

Since he started his weight loss journey he has lost 300 pounds!!! Go Arthur!!!

What did you think about tonights episode?

*And just a shout out to my Friend Christina at Dinner at Christinas. Please vote for her HERE for the Marx food challenge so she can make it to the next round.

And, lastly if you leave a comment 3 lucky readers will get a free coupon to try Sargento Cheese (they also have a new Lower Sodium cheese too!). Then you can make these ham and cheese scones for yourself!

Feb 27, 2011 Posted by Jennifer on Feb 27, 2011 in bread, breakfast, recipe make over | 10 comments

First time making artisan bread!

I’ve made several types of breads before, but never the artisan bread from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. It was on the cover of this Month’s Cooking Club of America. Once I saw it, I knew it was time to see if I could do it.

The one thing I wasn’t anticipating is the dough is super moist and sticky – don’t be afraid of that – it’s all good!

This recipe makes 4 1 pound loaves. I made the whole batch and actually baked all the loaves yesterday! One recipe was this base recipe, the other recipe was for a nutella ring bread (which also turned out great!).

Master Artisan Bread Recipe

3 1/2 cups lukewarm water
4 teaspoons yeast
4 teaspoons course salt (I used sea salt)
7 1/4 cups all purpose flour

I just used the biggest bowl I had. You don’t even need a mixer for this recipe, a spoon is just fine. The best part is you can actually store the leftover dough if you don’t bake it all and it lasts up to two weeks in the fridge!

Directions:

1. Combine water, yeast and salt in a large bowl. With a spoon, stir in the flour. The dough will be wet.

This is what the dough looks like after its all combined which will only take about a minute or so.

2. At this point you can store it in the fridge for later. Otherwise, let it rise on the counter for 2 hours. When I came back to check on it, I couldn’t believe how high it had risen!

The above bread I made is their Crusty Broule from the Artisan Bread recipe:

3. Grab about a grapefruit size piece of dough and quickly shape it into a ball. You can put a little flour on your hands because the dough is sticky!

4. Preheat the oven at 450 degrees and place a broiler pan in the lowest shelf in the oven. I don’t have a pizza stone (which the recipe suggested), but used my pizza pan – place that into the oven to get hot while the oven is getting hot. The directions suggested placing the dough on parchment paper so you can just transfer that to the baking stone or baking sheet. Using a serrated knife, make a few cuts on top of the dough about 1/4 inch deep.

5. Heat one cup of water in the microwave for about a minute. Place the dough on the heated baking stone, or cookie sheet and add the hot water to the broiler pan below that (it will create steam) and shut the door as fast as you can. Don’t open the oven door during baking, thats what keeps the crust nice and crunchy.

6. Bake for 30 minutes, or until nicely browned. You can also test it by tapping on the bottom of the bread. If it sounds hallow, its done. Cool on a wire rack.

Can I just tell you how excited I was when I opened my oven to this gorgeous loaf of bread! The first loaf was a little smaller than this and within half an hour, every member in my family would cut off a slice and it was gone! So luckily you can make 4 loaves of bread with this recipe.

I made the other recipe for the Master Artisan Bread Recipe which was a Nutella Ring. I will post that recipe later this week.

So, have you attempted to make the Artisan Bread Recipe?? If so, how were your results?

Feb 26, 2011 Posted by Jennifer on Feb 26, 2011 in bread, breakfast, recipe make over, Successes!! | 4 comments

My pancake experiment

I normally don’t make pancakes during the week, but I didn’t have a ton of stuff by the end of the week to make something deluxe. I had a package of pancake mix, and according to the box 1/4 cup of the pancake mix was only 180 calories. I was wondering what I could add to it to make it a little healthier.

One thing I thought of was pearl barley, but instead of making the pearl barley, I wondered if I could grind it up in my blender to make it into flour and add it into the pancake batter. 1/4 cup of pearl barley is 100 calories, but has a good amount of protein and 6 grams of fiber. I put the pearl barley in my blender and whirred away. I guess I didn’t really realize how hard those grains are! I was running out of time, so I just added the “flour” to the batter, added a little skim milk to make it the consistencey of pancake batter (a little over 1/4 of a cup). I also added a teaspoon of Nutella!

This made 3 HUGE pancakes for around 300 calories!

The result? I did like them, but all of the pearl barley didn’t quite get chopped up, so it had a little crunchy consistency, but to be honest, that didn’t turn me off at all, I actually liked the texture of it! I think next time I’ll blend it longer to make sure it all gets ground up.

My next experiment with pearl barley is to grind it up and add it to muffins for half the flour and see how that turns out.

Right now I am attempting to make “Artisan Bread in 5 minutes”. I belong to the Cooking Club of America and the latest magazine had the recipe in it. It makes 4 loaves, so right now its rising – we’ll see how it turns out.

The other day I clicked on an ad for The Chicago French Pastry School artisan bread making course. I thougth how awesome would that be? Ummm.. turns out the “Artisan Bread Making Course” is an 8 week, 5 day a week class and costs $10,500! I think for now, I’ll try it on my own!! Unless I win the lottery any time soon!!

And a few new blogs I found that I like:

Skinny Taste
Laylita
Circle-B-Kitchen

Have a good weekend! Check back to see if I mastered the Artisan Bread making!!!

Feb 25, 2011 Posted by Jennifer on Feb 25, 2011 in bread | 11 comments

Asiago Pesto Cheese bread

This bread is so easy to make! It’s less than 5 minutes hands on, waiting for it to rise while you go about your weekend chores and the next thing you know, its time to bake! This recipe comes from the 2000 Cooking Light Cookbook. I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve made dozens and dozens of recipes from this cookbook and everything comes out great! I just checked on Amazon and you can buy this book used for as little as twenty five cents!! Helen has this book and has made the enchilada casserole from it and when I asked her for the recipe, she said “You have the cookbook!” So she can vouch for it as well!

Now for the recipe!!

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour, divided
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 package dry yeast (about 2 1/4 teaspoons)
1 cup very warm water
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 oz. grated fresh asiago cheese
2-3 tablespoons prepared pesto*

Directions:

1. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cup, level with a knife.

2. Combine 1 cup flour, sugar, salt and yeast into a large bowl. Add 1 cup very warm water and 1 tablespoon oil; stir until well blended. Add 1 1/2 cups flour; stir until a soft dough forms.

3. Turn out dough and knead by hand 8 minutes (yeah right!) or use a mixer with a dough hook. Add remaining flour, 1 tablespoon at a time to prevent dough from sticking to your hands if you are kneading by hand. (the dough will feel tacky). Cover the dough with a little oil or cooking spray, cover with saran wrap and let rise for 1 hour.

4. Punch the dough down, and roll into a 15 x 10 inch rectangle. Add the pesto and spread all over, then sprinkle with the cheese. Roll up the rectangle tightly, starting at long side, pressing firmly to prevent air pockets. My daughter who is 9 did this part!

5. Using a sharp knife, make 1/4 inch deep diagonal cuts across the top of loaf, using a sharp knife. Cover again and let rise for another half hour. Before baking, combine 1 egg white with 2 tablespoons water and brush over the top of the bread.

6. Bake at a pre-heated 375 degree oven for 25-30 minutes or until the loaf is golden and sounds hollow when tapped. Cool on a wire rack.

This makes 16 slices. Each serving is 2 slices and its only 108 calories, 3 fat, .8 firber and 3.9 grams of protein.

*For the pesto, I finally bought a tube of pesto from the store. Once opened, refrigerate and squeeze some on hot pasta or rice, squeeze some on scrambled eggs, etc…

Have you tried pesto from a tube yet? What do you use it for??

Feb 4, 2011 Posted by Jennifer on Feb 4, 2011 in bread | 4 comments

Pretzel rolls

This is the second time making these and they turned out so great. The only thing I did differently was make the rolls smaller. Last time I made them it made 8 rather large rolls, and when I figured out the calories, it was 260! A little high.

So this time I made 16 rolls and they are the perfect size, not too small, but not gigantic either.

Ingredients:

2 packets of yeast
1 3/4 cups warm water
4.5 cups all purpose flour
1.5 tsp. table salt
1/8 cups sugar
Sea salt for sprinkling on top before baking

In a mixer, add the flour and warm water and yeast. Let stand for 5 minutes. Add the salt and sugar and using your dough hook, mix for about 5 minutes.

Lightly oil the dough and cover with a towel. Let rise for 1 hour. When I came back the dough was almost outside the bowl!

Punch down the dough and take it out of the mixing bowl. I just kind of formed it into a big ball. Cut it in half to make 4 pieces, then kept cutting the dough pieces in half until you have 16.

Form each of those pieces into a ball shape and place on a cookie sheet coated with cooking spray.

To get a nice browned crust. Take 1/2 cup baking soda and 2 cups of water. Heat on medium heat in a small pan until the baking soda dissolves. Using a pastry brush, brush the tops of the rolls with the baking powder water and then sprinkle with sea salt.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 10-12 minutes until nice and browned on top.

I’m making a fried egg sammy with one for breakfast today. You could also use these rolls for hamburgers too!

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So the kids are back in school today after having 2 days off. Mark and Claire sure had a great time in the snow!

So we are definitely heading to a huge snow hill by our house this weekend for sledding, its going to be awesome!

Any fun weekend plans?

Who are you rooting for in the Super Bowl? Since the Chicago Bears lost, I don’t really have any strong feeling either way, but I still love watching it!